Lunds universitet/Avdelningen för ABM och digitala kulturer
Abstract
The aim of this master's thesis is to examine how the architecture and interior design of The International Library in Stockholm affects the library use and the identification of the library as a multi-lingual place. The International Library is a library that is specialized in multi-lingual library services and collections. As a theoretical outset of the study serves the assumption that the information society and globalization is changing the role of the public library, turning it into an important public space and meeting place. Using theoretical framework from cultural geography and space theories from Henri Lefebvre, we are able to analyse how the spatial dimensions and organisation of, in and through space creates meaning to the library as a place in a multi-lingual context. By using observations as main method, activities and movements in the room could be recorded. This material, together with interviews and document analyse, serves as the base for the analysis. The results of the analysis show that the library through its spatial configuration is perceived and thereby used as a traditional library and how the spatial configuration both enables and inhibits social interaction. We also discuss how the library becomes as a place for identity formation, concluding that The International Library holds an international identity including both the collection and the cultural competense held by the employees, and how the library is understood as both a high and low intensive meeting place; based on the result that people with different backgrounds and with different intentions come together in the library room and are exposed to each other and to the linguistic and cultural range that is represented in The International Library
